With the Aspen fire on the westside still raging, June, Mammoth and the rest of the eastside has been enveloped in an unrelenting haze. Unfazed by the air quality, our team of dedicated JLB TestPilot downhill racers continue to rip the mountain and represent in the Friday Village Championship Downhill races. If you haven't been to one yet, come on out Friday afternoon and check it out for yourself.

On the beer front we're pretty jazzed up for Mammoth Brewing Company's 18th annual Bluesapalooza this weekend. This yearly gathering of blues and breweries unites killer tunes with some of the best beer in the country (or world even). As volunteers, Sarah and I will be helping the MBC crew setup and breakdown draft stations for the visiting breweries, we'll also have to sample some of the goods to ensure they're fit for public consumption. From Russian River to Ninkasi, good beer will be available in abundance so if you're not already planning to attend, immediately stop what you're doing, cancel all of your plans, and get up here because it's going to be friggin awesome!

In other beer festival news, block off Saturday October 5th on your calendars because we're working with the June Lake Chamber of Commerce to put together the inaugural June Lake Autumn Beer Festival. With the Kalifornia Krauts booked to play and Mammoth Brewing Company and Cismontane leading the brewery charge, we're gearing up for a super good time. Tragically we won't have our license in time, so JLB will not be featured, but we assure you there will be super good beer available along with bratwurst and a real life stein holding contest!

Great news, we had our use permit application accepted for review by the Mono County LDTAC committee yesterday! This means we're one step closer to making JLB a reality. However given the limited Planning Department staff (three people for all of Mono County), and their current backlog of applications, the review and approval process is probably going to take 60 to 90 days. This means we probably won't be cranking out beer for sale until early 2014. Bummer, but we think we've got a prime location and aside from timing, the county is being very helpful.

With the timing piece in mind we've put the Kickstarter campaign on temporary hold, as we don't want to launch it and then not be able to deliver on some of the rewards until six months after it's completed. I know everyone is ready to pump this thing up, but again taking the time to do it right!

On the beer front though we're still cranking... The BlackDog Imperial IPA came out fantastic at 9.7% with a velvety chocolate finish that isn't too hoppy or overwhelming, and a big thanks goes out to everyone that voted on their favorite label design on Facebook. We will be transferring the Carson Peak American Strong Ale off the dry hops this week and then that 12.5% monster of a beer will be put down for around a month to rest before we even attempt to approach it. Aside from all that we just want to send out a big thanks to all of the support everyone's provided.

It finally happened, we've got a home for June Lake Brewing! That's right, picture a cozy little space nestled in the heart of the village. Located in the old bank building beneath the June Lake General Store at 2740 Hwy 158, we've even got a bank vault! Though smaller than what we were looking for, everything has to start somewhere. Still pending County, State and Federal review, we're currently getting everything organized and hope for a December opening. Also our Kickstarter campaign is ready to launch, but to get maximum effectiveness we're going to wait until July 16th to release it into the wild, so stay tuned on that front.

On the brewing front the Black Dog Imperial IPA and the Carson Peak American Strong Ale are both fermenting along nicely. The former should be ready for consumption mid July and the latter, being the massive beer it is, will probably not be ready until mid/late August. Yesterday we brewed up our take on a golden blond ale that we're crafting for the Gold Rush Adventure Race, that will be held in June Lake September 18th - 22nd. For those not familiar this is a backcountry race that drops teams off at an undisclosed location ~100 miles from June Lake, and then each team has four days to find their way back to June Lake across the rugged terrain of the Sierras. Cool stuff, so why not make a killer beer to celebrate?!

Lastly we come to the Pedal Driven Pale Ale... When we went to bottle this beer last week, we were greeted with a beer that pretty much sucked. It was bound to happen, and after five brews that turned out awesome, our sixth fell flat on its face. So tragically we won't have any beer for a couple weeks until the Black Dog Imperial IPA emerges from the fermentors. We'll revisit the pale session ale style, but for the time being we're going to strive on with what we know and love: Big Aggressive Ass Beers!